Hi team,
I’m hoping someone can advise on the appropriate avenue for addressing a significant reduction in PokéStops and Gyms within a local area.
Within my local area, the number of PokéStops has recently reduced from seven to just two, while the number of Gyms has reduced from three to just one.
The cumulative impact has significantly changed local gameplay. Previously, there were enough PokéStops and Gyms throughout the area to walk between locations, interact with multiple Gyms, participate in raids and generally enjoy playing Pokémon GO while exploring the local community. There is now very little remaining to interact with.
A new local park has also recently opened, providing several new eligible points of interest that were nominated and approved as Wayspots. Despite this, only one of those approved Wayspots has appeared in Pokémon GO as a PokéStop, with no Gym at the park.
This also significantly reduces accessibility. Not everyone can simply travel to another area to play. Players may have health or physical limitations, limited access to transport, or financial constraints.
Pokémon GO encourages players to explore, exercise and engage with their local community, but that becomes increasingly difficult when there is very little left locally to interact with.
What is the appropriate avenue for having an area in this situation reviewed and the impact on local gameplay addressed?
Thanks for your help.
There can be multiple reasons. A number of stops where invalid, and as such, were removed (perhaps after a report, or a different reason). You can think of stops that appeared to be removed in real life, being placed on the property of a single family household, at a school location, or without safe access to pedestrians.
Besides this, each game have their own inclusion rules upon the amount of stops, and under which condititations a waypoint can become a stop, known as the S2-cells principle. It can be the case that earlier on, due to map manipulation or simply luck, the inclusion rules were incorrectly applied, and now they are applied in the normal way.
The above is all speculation, but it will be the first things that will be verified and normally be the cause of this. Can you share a location, and a couple of items that were removed? The community is more than happy to take a look and help to find a reasoning.
Thanks. I understand there can be various reasons individual Wayspots may no longer appear in Pokémon GO. Determining why each individual location was removed isn’t my question.
My question is whether there is an appropriate avenue to request a review of the cumulative impact on gameplay in an area after a significant reduction in PokéStops and Gyms, particularly where newly approved Wayspots are also not appearing in Pokémon GO.
I’m attempting to find out whether there is a formal channel through Wayfarer, Pokémon GO support or elsewhere for this type of broader review, as I could not see an option via the in app support.
There really isn’t a separate “overall area impact” review, because these decisions ultimately come back to the individual Wayspots. If a PokéStop or Gym was removed because the underlying Wayspot was no longer eligible, inaccurate, or otherwise invalid, the fact that several removals happen in the same neighborhood doesn’t make those Wayspots more valid.
Likewise, newly approved Wayspots not appearing in Pokémon GO can be due to the game’s own inclusion rules and doesn’t necessarily indicate a broader problem with the area.
The practical way to rebuild an area is to nominate legitimate, eligible real-world POIs that actually exist and meet criteria. If the old locations were invalid, there isn’t really a mechanism to restore density just because gameplay became worse after they were removed.
Do you want to share the location? Maybe we can explain better if we can see the layout, the satellite etc.
Are you certain they were removed, or just moved and vanished from the game?
Thanks. They definitely disappeared from Pokémon GO, although I don’t know whether the underlying Wayspots themselves were removed or moved, which is part of what I’m trying to understand.
I’m a little hesitant to post the precise location publicly. Is there a way I can provide the location privately, or an appropriate support channel where someone can look at the area?
If you wanted to PM me the lat/long I can take a look for you.
Only staff and ambassadors can do PM’s on this forum.
If you want to verify if the underlying wayspots are there:
Try to start (not submit!) a new wayspot submission. When you pick a location, you’ll also see the current existing waypoints (regardless if they are in pokemon go or not).
This way, you can quickly verify if the underlying waypoints are removed, or if they only disappeared from Pokemon Go.